HAISLA HERITAGE COLLECTION
The Museum displays a collection of Haisla heritage artifacts in its Upstairs Gallery. The collection includes those artifacts held in trust for the Haisla Nation such as the three bentwood box artifacts with Haisla design. The exhibition is an opportunity for the Museum to foster a stronger relationship and bond with the Haisla Nation through consultation, collaboration, providing improvements to the safety of Haisla heritage artifacts, and cultural information for public education and understanding.
The Museum has installed the heritage artifacts in museum‐quality cases along with nine information panels featuring Haisla culture, arts, technology, and history. Sources of funding include Haisla Nation Council, Canada Cultural Spaces Fund, BC Community Gaming, District of Kitimat, Kitimat Community Foundation, Rio Tinto, and LNG Canada
The Haisla First Nation collection area occupies one quarter of the small Upstairs Gallery. In the spring and summer of 2016 Museum staff had the pleasure to meet with a Haisla Language and Culture Coordinator for the Haisla Nation on cultural information for the area. Artifact placement and case arrangement was proposed by Museum staff, and a designer provided a potential design for the area.
In April 2017, In Support of Difficult Art & Artifacts provided artifact mounts and plinths, re‐housing the Haisla heritage collection in the new cases, and setting up the eulachon processing / food harvest area. The nine cultural information panels were completed with the assistance of the Haisla Teacher, Haisla Education Centre and meetings with Haisla elders and a consultant.
Cultural information on panels includes:
- Nuyem (social teachings)
- Clans
- Feasts
- Haisla Territory and Wawais (family stewardship areas), Place Names
- Neighbours and Amalgamation
- Language
- Food
- Knowledge
- Winter Village and Seasonal Camps
- Repatriation
- Arts—Traditional and Contemporary
![View of Kitamaat [Kitimat, B.C.], c. 1910; 1894 Mission House Center-right. [Library and Archives Canada PA-060031].
Photo: Kitimat Museum & Archives Strategic Plan 2020-2030, Donald Luxton & Associates, 2021](https://www.kitimatmuseum.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/slide-5.jpg)
The Origins of Haisla
Produced by the Haisla Nation Council, retrace the steps of the very first Haisla in this telling of the Nation’s origin, complete with some beautiful animation by artist Paul Windsor and narrated by Teresa Windsor.